Crusaders crush sorry Salford

Play-off chasing Crusaders posted their highest ever victory as a Super League club with a 60-16 home thrashing of Salford City Reds on Sunday.

Nick Youngquest notched a hat-trick of tries, while full-back Clinton Schifcofske scored 24 points with two tries and eight goals at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground.

Tony Martin also notched a brace of tries, with other home touchdowns coming from Ryan O'Hara, Frank Winterstein, Weller Hauraki and Rhys Hanbury.

Stefan Ratchford scored an early try for Salford before Jeremy Smith was sent off in the second-half for dissent.

Ray Cashmere and Kurt Fitzpatrick then notched late efforts but it was much too little, too late for the visitors.

The victory drew the Crusaders level on points with eighth-placed Castleford Tigers, who narrowly lost to Hull KR on Sunday and have played a game more than Brian Noble's side.

One adjustment

The Crusaders head coach made just one adjustment to the side which scored a crucial victory over the Tigers at Neath last week.

Leading try scorer Vince Mellars, who has a groin injury, was absent from the 17-man side and was replaced by Winterstein.

Welsh rugby union legend Gareth Thomas was still not fit from his groin injury but Noble expects him to play against Harlequins on Friday night.

Salford needed to win all three of their remaining fixtures to have a mathematical prospect of the play-offs but have been hit by the loss of key playmaker Daniel Holdsworth, who is having shoulder surgery.

Coach Shaun McRae made three changes from the side that lost to Leeds Rhinos the previous weekend, with Adam Sidlow dropping to the bench and Steve Tyrer, who was with the Crusaders last year, and Marc Sneyd absent from the squad..

Salford were actually in the lead for all of four minutes after Youngquest's opening try was cancelled out by Ratchford and Matty Smith landed a simple conversion.

But, after Youngquest got his second touchdown on ten minutes and injured Salford centre Mark Henry was carried off just a minute later, it was all Crusaders.

Unopposed

Half-back Rhys Hanbury burst through on the left and, with two attackers covered, he went inside to fly over unopposed.

Schifcofske converted and then claimed a try of his own with a dash through the Salford midfield on the right.

Ashley Gibson almost brought some light to the Reds' gloom when he was just in touch diving over in the right corner, however that was their last chance of the half as the Welshmen struck twice more.

First, Martin ran through a gap and scored on 34 minutes, then O'Hara drove under the posts from two yards.

After a quiet ten minutes, the Crusaders continued the onslaught with Weller Hauraki and Winterstein crossing either side of additional tries for Youngquest, Schifcofske and Martin.

Smith's frustration boiled over on 72 minutes but, surprisingly, Salford responded with tries from Cashmere and Fitzpatrick but it was far, far too late in the match.